


Parting the Clouds 3 -- The Adaptation

by Derin



Series: Parting the Clouds [3]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 21:13:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 15,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2203296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/pseuds/Derin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The yeerks are up to something in the mountains. The Animorphs need to find out what, and when they see what's going on, they hatch a plan that could tell the world about the invasion and put it in the hands of trained military, letting them get on with their lives.</p><p>But something's not right with Tobias. It's hard being a hawk, and it's getting to him. Can he hold it together long enough to complete what could be their very last mission? And what drastic lengths will he go to, knowing that out of all the Animorphs, he has no happy ending in sight?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Much thanks to JustAnotherGhostWriter, who has generously loaned her awesome betaing skills and general support to this project from start to finish and without whom this would almost certainly not exist (and would certainly be much worse), as well as my innumerable temporary beta readers. Also thanks to Featherquillpen, who came up with the series title.

[Still got me?] Tobias sounded bored. I couldn't help with that.

[Still got you. You're getting a bit faint.]

[I'll move out further. I'm still not sure what the point of this is.]

[You're not sure what the point of learning our communication range is?] I moved higher up the wall as a human passed below. Lizard was not my favourite morph, but it was my least conspicuous, especially in a Staff Only corridor in a fast food shop. I would've preferred to have done the experiment outside the city, but it needed to be somewhere that Tobias knew well enough to estimate distances. It was just a preliminary test anyway, in case the information was important really soon – ideally, I'd like to test different morphs, elevation, physical barriers, people, background noises and emotional states. But for a single free afternoon, a lizard and a hawk having a chat over long distance would do. [Do you still have me, Tobias?] Silence. [Tobias! Do you read me?]

Nope. Silence. I waited.

[Tobias?]

No Tobias.

Something couldn't have happened to him, could it? The city wasn't an entirely safe place for a hawk. There were cars and other birds and the occasional jerk... but Tobias was smart.

Then why wasn't he answering? Why hadn't he come straight back into range when I'd lost him?

I looked for somewhere to demorph. Employees were moving in and out of the hall every few minutes; not a good spot. Employee bathroom. That'd do. I scampered in and focused on Cassie.

 _Quickly, quickly_. I grew. My skin softened, and tiny hairs sprung up on it. My nose pinched in to create a human nose. I'd been experimenting in my spare time, and I hadn't found a way to go from one animal to another, but I was getting much faster at becoming human.

And soon, human I was, standing in a bathroom cubicle in a blue leotard. I propped the main door open a little before locking myself back in the cubicle and focusing on the osprey within me. Feathers sprouted, my lips hardened; I shrank once more. _Quickly, quickly_.

I scrambled under the cubicle door and made for the door.

Just as some conscientious employee pulled the door shut.

If I was human, I would've screamed in frustration. There was no way out of the bathroom. But if I went human and got to the roof and morphed up there...

[Cassie? You there?]

[Tobias! Where have you been?! Are you okay?!]

[Yeah. Fine. We should call everyone to together as soon as possible.]

[Why? What happened to you?]

[It's... kind of hard to explain.] His tone didn’t give much away, but it gave away enough.

Enough for me to know that my free afternoon was going to get cut short.


	2. Chapter 2

“A hole in the sky?” Rachel frowned, not like she didn't believe Tobias, but like she didn't really understand. She wasn't alone in that regard.

The five of us had gathered in my barn, as usual. I was scrubbing out a cage. It's important that all cages are clean before we put a new animal in them to prevent infections from spreading. A wolf in a cage nearby whined at the strong smell of detergent. He'd live.

[It was like a big spot of... nothing.] Tobias moved uneasily from foot to foot; if he'd had hands, he'd be waving them. [Like a bubble of nothing, which you can't really see in air because air is already transparent. But water vapour moves around it. I think it was a hidden yeerk ship. A very, very big one. Ocean liner big.]

“You sure it wasn't a trick of the light?” Jake asked.

[It's not the first time I've seen it. I followed it for a bit, but it's really hard to keep track of.]

“How many times?” Marco asked.

[Three.]

“How can you be sure it's a yeerk ship?” I asked.

[It's a giant ship with some kind of cloaking technology. It's definitely not human.] He gave a mental sigh. [Look, the yeerks clearly have some method of disguising their ships, or radar would pick them up.]

“Not to mention space battles,” Marco added thoughtfully. “There's not much to hide behind in space. Turning invisible is pretty much a necessity, given how flimsy the ships are.”

“We've always been able to see yeerk ships before,” Rachel said.

[On the ground, yes. It might not work close to the ground.]

“Tobias,” I asked, “did you ever see where the ship went?”

[I've not been able to follow it that long. But judging by the direction and the height, I think it heads to and from the mountains.]

Marco rolled his eyes. "The mountains? Have you suburb-dwellers ever been to the mountains? We're talking about a large area. No matter how big this ship is, it could hide in a thousand places in the mountains."

"Then we'd better start looking right away," Rachel said brightly.

“And go get ourselves killed? We can only be lucky for so long, you know. Every time we try to spy on the yeerks, somebody nearly dies. You want to go back a _third_ time?”

Jake looked at me. "Cassie? What do you think?"

I wasn't sure what I thought, yet. But Jake was looking at me expectantly, so I explained my thought process. "I halfway feel like we've done enough. You know? We attacked the yeerk pool. We barely got out alive. We infiltrated Chapman's house and Rachel was captured. Again, we barely got out alive. I guess the question is, how many risks are we going to take? How many more times are we going to barely escape? We've survived this far on luck. We've been ridiculously lucky. How long can that last?"

I could see that Marco was surprised. "Exactly! Exactly! Just what I've been saying. Why is it our job to get killed?"

"But, as far as I'm concerned, I can't just do nothing while people are enslaved by the yeerks." I continued. "Maybe it's just me..." I shrugged. "The thing is, I have these powers. I have to do something. I'm not... I'm not sure we really have a choice here. We do what we have to do to defend our planet. The choice isn't 'do we live a safe normal life, or do we fight yeerks?' The choice is, 'do we fight yeerks in this way, or is it more effective to skip this one and fight yeerks in a different way?' And if there's a giant ship making trips to and from the mountains, I think we need to know why."

"Look, these aren't people we know," Marco argued. "They aren't my friends. Or my family." He shot a guilty look at Jake. "And we did everything we could for Tom. So why should I get killed for strangers? We can't stay lucky forever. Don't you people understand that? Sooner or later, we'll slip up. Sooner or later we'll be standing around here crying because Jake or Rachel or Cassie or Tobias is gone."

“It might be people you know,” I said.

“What?”

“What makes you think your father is your father?” I felt horrible saying it. But it had to be said.

I'd expected Marco to be angry. Instead, he laughed. A humorless laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. “I think if my dad was a Controller, he'd have the motivation to at least leave the house once every three days to avoid starving. And he'd be back at work. Nope. This is not, and has never been, my problem.”

"You know something?" Rachel exploded. "I'm tired of trying to talk you into this, Marco. You want out? Fine, you're OUT!"

"Hey, Rachel, you're not just doing this to help save the human race," Marco yelled back. "You get off on the danger. We've all seen you in battle mode. You like being able to crush things, don't you? You like people running in fear of you. The yeerks are giving you an excuse to be a mighty warrior instead of a nothing kid with anger issues. And you're dragging Tobias around with you because he's too naïve to call you on it.”

Marco realized he'd gone too far. He fell silent. Rachel shot Marco a look of pure anger. I bit my lip, not sure if I should intervene. All this fighting amongst ourselves was unproductive, but I had the feeling that if Marco thought he wasn’t being listened to we'd lose him faster. And I'd rather five of us against the yeerks than four.

[As of right now,] Tobias said, [as of today, only one of us has been hurt. Me. But I'm not going to give up. I'm not anyone's leader. But what I am going to do is go to the mountains tomorrow morning. What the rest of you do is your business.]

"I'll be with you," Rachel said instantly.

I nodded. Of course I was going.

Jake made a wry smile. "You say you're not a leader, but I'll go with you."

Marco shook his head. "No," he said.

"Your choice," Rachel said.

"That's not what I meant," Marco said angrily. "I meant no, not in the morning. Tomorrow's a school day. If all of us skip school on the same day and later there's some trouble with the yeerks, don't you think Chapman might put two and two together?"

Jake raised an eyebrow. "Marco's right. After school." He looked at the others and nodded.

He was right. Marco had always been a smart guy, clowning aside. It worried me a little. It made me wonder. Was he right about other things as well?

How many risks could we take before we lost? How long till the five of us were four? Or two?

Or none?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The workings of 'wolf packs' in reality are not as implied by this work, but in the '90s, this is how we thought wolf packs functioned. Cassie is narrating her experience based on the information she had available and how she thinks wolf packs are structured.

Rachel being discovered in cat morph had made us all a bit more cautious about our morphs. It was important not to do anything attention-catching or suspicious in morph. So even though we all had bird morphs, we all thought that a flock of a red-tailed hawk, two ospreys, a peregrine falcon and a bald eagle flying into the mountains might look a little too strange. Bird watchers could be Controllers just as easily as anyone else.

Fortunately, the Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre had a solution.

"Bird-watchers!" Marco snorted as he tramped over the carpet of pine needles deeper into the woods. "We could fly, but no. No, we have to walk. Twenty miles, probably!"

There's a national forest bordering our farm. It goes on practically forever, stretching from the edge of town all the way up into the mountains. It's all pines and oaks and elms and birches. Wilderness, really. Thousands of square acres of it.

"Oh, come on, Marco," I tried to be encouraging. "It's an opportunity to try out a new morph!"

"Yeah," Jake chided. "Instead of being home doing math homework, you get to turn into a wolf. Are you going to tell me you'd rather be doing equations?"

"Let's see," Marco considered. "Math? Or becoming a wolf and going off to find aliens? Maybe I should ask the school counsellor what she thinks. It's such a common problem. I'm sure she'd have some good advice."

It made me angry when we got animals like wolves in the rehabilitation centre. They’d only just been reintroduced to the area and already we had patients. They were gentle, intelligent animals with strong family connections, and human idiocy put them in our hands, in pain and danger. We had a male that some moron had shot, and a female who'd eaten poison left out by a farmer.

Jake stopped, looked around, and announced, "This is good." We were a few hundred yards into the woods. Tobias landed dramatically on a branch above his head.

"What I don't get is why I have to be a girl wolf," Marco grumbled.

"We had one male and one female," I explained yet again. "If two of us morphed into the male, we'd have two males. Two male wolves might decide they had to fight for dominance."

"I could control it," Marco said.

"Marco, you and Jake already fight for dominance, and you're just ordinary guys," Rachel pointed out.

“Honestly Marco, you're fine with changing species but not sex? Do you have any idea how similar you are to a human female, compared with a male wolf?” I asked.

“Well now I'm changing species and sex. The weirdness is cumulative,” he grumbled.

"We flipped a coin, fair and square," Jake said. "I got to be the male. You're one of the females. Get over it."

"Let me see that coin again," Marco said suspiciously.

Jake just smiled. "Let's just do this. Cassie, you want to go first, to see what it's like?"

Somehow, everyone had come to the conclusion that I had some kind of innate talent for morphing. I didn't think I did, but I had a good grounding in biology. And a lot of practise. This would be my first time with the wolf; I generally had a rule that I'd always practise a morph before using it. But this didn't count, really. Practising meant morphing and wandering around. If I could do that in the direction of the mountains, so much the better.

I stripped down to leotard and concentrated.

I didn't expect to have any real control over the morphing process until I'd done it at least once and knew what the wolf felt like, but a lot of it should be the same as the horse. Or human, for that matter. A mammal was a mammal. My hair went from very short black to shaggy silver in a matter of seconds, before creeping down my neck and shoulders. Soon, I was a shaggy wolf-woman from a B-grade horror flick. My vision changed, with colors disappearing and yellows brightening. I wasn't completely colorblind, but I definitely didn't have the same color range that humans did. My nose bulged, my teeth grew, and normal speech became impossible.

[Beware the werewolf!] I announced jokingly as my feet lengthened and my upper legs shrank, drawing my knees close to my hips and forcing me onto tiptoes. I fell forward onto hairy, shrinking hands. Finally, my tail stretched from my spine.

Smells!

I could smell bacon on Rachel's breath. I could smell Marco's sneakers. I could pick up the distinct scents of three humans in front of me and a fourth that wasn't. But those young predators, although worthy of notice and caution, didn't encompass the whole of my world.

There was prey in the grass, small prey, nothing worth my attention outside famine or fun. There was the scent of larger prey on the wind. And there was the scent of other predators, too. Including wolves. But this wasn't their territory, they'd just passed through. My nose connected me right to the world around me. Smell was to me what hearing was to a human.... although hearing was important to me, too, and more sensitive than any human's.

"How is it?" Jake asked.

Confronting predator! I turned to face him and snarled. From the expressions on their faces, it must have looked vicious. They were humans, and I’d really prefer to run from humans, but I was alone and I’d already made the challenge and it was too late to run off now, not before I knew what they would do.

"Let's all stand really still," Jake said. Calmly and quietly.

"Good idea," Marco agreed. "Really, really still. Because those are really, really big teeth."

Everyone stood motionless while I fought to make the wolf understand that they weren't a threat. Getting control of a morph is a bit like I imagine bungee jumping to be, sometimes. You know perfectly well that everything's fine, you can see the big rope safely anchoring you, but your instincts still scream at you not to jump off the ledge or you'll die.

[Sorry,] I thought-spoke at last. [I have it now.]

"Are you sure?" Rachel asked warily.

[Yes, it's fine. I'm fine. In fact… it's really kind of wonderful! Hearing, and smell... you guys want to try this.]

[I'm not sure that wandering randomly into the forest is the best yeerk-finding strategy,] Marco pointed out once he was a wolf.

[We have Tobias' eyes.]

[Oh, wow, the eyes of a hawk to cover the entire mountains looking for something invisible. I guess I'm wrong then.]

We ignored him and started walking.

Wolves are great. They're not fast, compared to the birds we've been, but they just keep going. They walk and walk and it's like they never need to stop.

Well, almost never. Jake, our alpha male, did.

[Jake, just how many more times are you going to pee?] Rachel demanded after his fifth stop.

[I... I don't know. I kind of have to do it a lot,] he admitted.

[Why? Did you drink too much soda before we left?]

[I don't know. I just keep getting this urge to pee.]

[You're scent marking,] I explained. [You're marking out a territory.]

[I am?]

[Yes, you are. I think it's normal. For a dominant wolf.]

[Jake's staking out a wolfy holiday home for us,] Marco remarked. [Great. I was getting bored with my real house. Seriously, we do not need a wolf territory.]

[Tell that to my wolf brain,] Jake shot back.

[It might get us into trouble with other wolves, though.] I thought about that. [No, it's good, it'd give us a home ground to retreat to.]

[Other wolves?] Marco asked.

[Can't you smell them? They probably won't come down here. Wolves are territorial.]

[Ok, but knowing our luck, what are the chances they'll come down here?]

[Luck isn't a real thing, Marco. Of course, we don't know where their territory is, so it depends on how far we have to walk.]

Before Marco could make a joke, we were interrupted by an unearthly howling.

"OWWW-OOOOOOO-yow-yow-OOOOOO." It was Jake.

[What the - ] Marco started to say, but then he was doing it, too.

"Yow-yow-OOWWOOOOO!"

Rachel and I weren't far behind.

"OOOOO-yowww-OWW-OOOOOOO!"

[What are you people doing?] Tobias demanded. He'd doubled back for us. [We're in a hurry here. You guys can only stay in morph for two hours. Why are you wasting time howling?]

[I don't know,] Jake admitted sheepishly. [I just suddenly felt like it would be a good idea.]

[Once he started, I... I kind of felt like I should join in,] Rachel said.

[I think it's a way to warn all the other wolves that we're here, so we don't run into any other packs and get in fights,] I suggested. Which probably would've sounded smarter if I hadn't had my head tilted back and my snout pointed at the sky, yodelling like an idiot.

[This is about the time of day when I sighted the ship heading towards the mountains,] Tobias said. [You guys keep moving. I'm going up top to look around.]

[Be careful,] Rachel said.

We kept moving.

A little while later, Tobias returned. [Is that you guys?]

[Who else would it be?] Marco asked.

[Don't ask,] he said.

[Did you encounter real wolves? You did, didn't you?]

[That's not important right now. We have trouble. There's a lake just a little way ahead. It's crawling with Park Rangers who aren't really Park Rangers.]

[Yeah, I thought I smelled water. And humans,] I said.

[How do you know they aren't real Park Rangers?] Jake asked.

[Because real Park Rangers don't carry machine guns,] Tobias said. [Plus, they don't hang around with hork-bajir.]

[Hork-bajir?] I asked. [You're sure?]

[Oh yeah,] he said. [It's kind of hard to confuse them with anything else. The Park Rangers are clearing out the area around the lake. They hustled some campers out of there real fast. At gunpoint.]

[Hork-bajir,] Marco said with distaste. [I really don't like those guys.]

Rachel asked, [This lake, it's in the same direction your big invisible ship was moving?]

[It's in a perfectly straight line,] he confirmed. [Whatever that ship was, I'd bet anything it was heading for that lake.]

[And judging by the way you say these Park Ranger Controllers and hork-bajir are acting, it's on its way again,] Marco mused.

[I'll tell you one thing,] Tobias said. [These guys all looked like they'd done this many times before. You know what I mean? Like this was a real common routine. They had it down.]

[We don't have a lot of time left in morph,] Jake said. [But it would be a shame to miss the chance to find out what this is all about.]

Rachel bared her wolf teeth in an expression that nobody could mistake for a grin. [I say go for it.]

[You always say go for it,] Marco muttered. [If just once you would say, 'Hey, let's not do this,' it would make me so happy.]

[You have about forty minutes left,] Tobias reported. [The lake is about five minutes away.]

[Okay. Let's go. But in and out fast,] Jake warned. [Just enough to see what's going on.]

We took off, with Jake in the lead. [Remember, just act like wolves.]

[Yeah, so if anyone sees the Three Little Pigs, don't forget to huff and puff,] Marco said.

[Park Rangers just ahead,] Tobias said.

[Yeah, I can definitely smell them now,] Rachel replied. [And hear them, too.]

[Okay, look, wolves would try to steer clear of humans,] I advised. [So a little slinking would be perfectly normal.]

We moved in a cautious circle around the phony Park Rangers. The Rangers had spotted us. They tensed up, then relaxed when they saw it was just a wolf pack minding its own business. If we were going to make a habit of spying on yeerks like this, it was only going to get harder. It wouldn't take them long to learn to look suspiciously at any animal.

[Don't act suspicious or freak,] Tobias called down. [But look up.]

[Oh my God,] Rachel gasped.

[It's... it's huge!] That was me.

But it wasn't huge. Elephants have been described as huge. Blue whales are huge. This was another level. It was oil tanker huge. Aircraft carrier huge. Compared to this thing, the biggest jumbo jet ever built was a toy.

It was shaped like a manta ray. There was a bulging, fat portion in the middle, with swooped, curvy wings, one either side. On top of the wings were huge scoops, like air intakes on a fighter jet, but much bigger. You could suck a fleet of buses in through those scoops. And it was almost on top of us.

[I have Bug fighters up here,] Tobias reported. [A pair.]

[Who cares about Bug fighters?] Marco asked. [They're nothing compared to that... that whale!]

[The Bug fighters are circling the lake. I guess they're looking around for trouble.]

[Try not to look like trouble,] Jake advised dryly.

We tried to look like normal wolves, retreating a bit from the big, noisy ship... but not so far that we couldn't keep an eye on it. And not out of Tobias' thought-speak range.

[We got taxxons,] Tobias told us. We couldn't see all that well through the trees. [Taxxon pilots in the ship, and taxxon footsoldiers. And the hork-bajir are back.] The ship started to descend over the lake. [Are you guys seeing this? I think it's going to land.]

[Are we seeing it? No. We've totally missed the fact that a spaceship the size of Delaware is hovering in midair.] Marco, of course.

[It's incredible,] Rachel said. [Incredible.]

[You know, I hate to be a pessimist,] Marco said, [but when I look at that thing I get a bad feeling about our chances. Four hounds and a bird versus a ship the size of ldaho!]

[A minute ago it was just the size of Delaware,] I pointed out.

[What's it doing here? That's what I want to know,] Jake said.

We'd crept toward the edge of the clearing again, all wanting a closer look.

[You guys? Watch how you act. The yeerks will be looking for any animals that act strangely,] Tobias said. [They're on the lookout for andalites who can morph.]

[He's right,] Marco agreed. [Jake? Start peeing on things again.]

[Very funny,] Jake said.

Then something began to happen. [Hey. Look!]

From the belly of the ship, a pipe began to lower into the water. Then a second pipe, and a third.

[They're like straws,] I said. [Water pipes. They're drinking!]

I could hear the sucking sound. Thousands, maybe millions of gallons of water being sucked up into the ship.

[That's why it's so big,] Marco said. He laughed. [Well, well, well. What do you know? We have just discovered that the yeerks have a great big weakness.]

[A weakness?] Rachel demanded. [You can look at that ship and talk about weakness?]

[It means they need something,] Tobias said.

[Exactly,] Marco said. [Those big scoops on the sides? I think those are for air. That's why they fly so far through the atmosphere when they come down. They're scooping up oxygen. And now they are sucking up water.]

[It's a truck,] I said. [The whole ship is a supply truck.]

[Yeah,] Tobias said. [It carries air and water up to the yeerk mother ship in orbit. I guess they need Earth to supply them.]

[So. It's not like Star Trek, where they can just make their own air and water,] Marco mused. [As long as they are up there in orbit, the yeerks need the planet to supply them with air and water. Well, well. I think that's the first hopeful sign yet.]

[We're running low on time,] I reminded everyone. [Time to get out of here.]

[Okay, but everyone be cool about it,] Jake advised. [We act like we're just sauntering off to go kill a moose - or whatever it is wolves saunter off to do.]

We drifted back from the shore of the lake. Tobias stayed behind. He no longer had a time limit to worry about. I hoped he wouldn't do anything stupid and get himself killed.

It’d make much more sense to do something stupid and get ourselves killed as a team.


	4. Chapter 4

We were looking for a hidden spot to refresh our morphs and started moving again when we smelled trouble. Jake smelled it first. The rest of us weren't far behind, and the wolf brain knew what it meant.

[Dammit!] Marco said. [I knew we wouldn't get out of here without running into other wolves!]

[We go around,] Jake said.

[We can't,] I said. [We're too close. Look at the direction of the wind; they knew we were coming and now we're practically in top of them.]

We heard a growl, and came face to face with the growler. An alpha male, crouched behind a dead rabbit. He locked eyes with Jake. Behind him, four other wolves moved into formation. Three of them looked kind of young, but even a young wolf is plenty of muscle. And they knew how to fight as wolves. We did not.

[Okay,] Marco said, [let's go.]

[We can't,] I told him. [If Jake backs away now, it could be seen as a sign of weakness and provoke an attack. And we are in their territory.] I wished I knew more about wolves.

[Well can't we run back to our territory?]

[Maybe. Wolves don't normally kill other wolves in these fights, and we can heal. I think our best shot is to just lose.]

[You want us to deliberately get beaten up by wolves?] Marco was incredulous.

[The alternative is trying to beat up wolves for no reason.]

[Guys?] Tobias. [What's going on?]

[A minor disagreement, Tobias,] I told him. [The pack thinks we're trying to steal their kill. We've got it under control.]

[Really? Because it looks like some wolves want to beat you up.]

[We'll live. Just stay out of the way and trust Jake to handle it.]

A pause. Neither Jake nor the real alpha moved.

Then Tobias said, [The fight is about the rabbit, right?]

Before I could talk him out of doing something stupid, Tobias dove. He reached for the rabbit, grabbed it, tried to fly. Technically, red-tailed hawks could carry fully grown rabbits, but not very well. He was barely staying ahead of the alpha wolf, who snapped at his tail.

It was Jake who got a handle on the situation. [Everyone retreat into the forest, now.]

Rachel protested. [But Tobias – ]

[Now, Rachel!] We were still disappearing when he said [You too, Tobias, let's go. And thanks.]

Rachel was not so grateful. [Tobias, you idiot! Are you okay?]

[I think so. I think I lost a few tail feathers.] Tail feathers grow back.

[Are you trying to get yourself killed?! You can't heal like the rest of us!]

I didn't catch Tobias' reply. I think they'd switched to private thoughtspeak.

[How long do we have left in morph?] Jake asked.

[I don't know,] Tobias said. [I'll try to get a reading.] He peeled off.

We really should just demorph when in doubt. But close as we were to both wolves and Controllers, we didn't want to do that without a secure spot to do it in. Barely a minute later, I heard a faint call. [MORPH!]

[Did you guys hear...]

It came again, clearer. Tobias. [Morph, now!]

[How much time do we have?] Marco demanded.

[None.]


	5. Chapter 5

We were so stupid! We should never take risks like that! When in doubt, demorph!

I took a deep breath and focused. _Cassiecassiecassiecassiecassie_...

I had feet that were shorter than that, yes... heels that touched the floor... my jaw was a flatter shape, crushing my teeth together in an evolutionary tradeoff... my sinus cavities were upside down... my larynx low, to allow speech...

Forcing the changes was like walking through quicksand. But I had to keep going. I couldn't get stuck halfway. A half-wolf wouldn't live long, the immune problems alone... _don't get distracted, focus..._

My eyes were different. I had a thicker, more muscular tongue. My ears were lower on my head and rounded, the muscles used to change their direction atrophied and useless. My pelvis... my pelvis was a different shape, I was bipedal by default...

Were bones grating on each other, or was that my imagination? I gritted my weirdly human teeth against the awful sensation. Hair... I had body hair, but much finer. Thicker on my head. I didn't have a tail, my spine fused to an end at the tailbone. Another evolutionary tradeoff.

I stood up, human, hoping that all the bits I didn't know had taken care of themselves. I _felt_ human. The others were still struggling against the changes. Jake, beside me, a seething mass of lumpy flesh; Rachel, a wolf with perfectly human hands. Marco's human head was too small for his massive wolf shoulders.

[How much longer do we have?] Jake asked.

[About two minutes,] Tobias replied.

I crouched next to Jake. “Come on, Jake. You can do this. Your fingers are longer than that, with stretched phalanges controlled by tendons. The two bones in your lower arm, the radius and ulna, move around each other so your wrist can rotate. Your shoulders have a hemisphere of movement, Jake.” I moved on to Rachel. “Your hair is longer than this on your head, shorter and finer everywhere else. Your ribcage is rounder than this. Your canines are short and rounded. Marco, your thumbs are opposable, okay? They're longer than this, they're further down on your hand. Hands, remember? And feet... you walk on your heelbones, because you're bipedal.” Slowly, changes asserted themselves, until my exhausted friends finally stood, fully human.

"We did it," Jake gasped weakly. He lay on his back on the pine needles. "We made it."

"That was close," Rachel said. "That was way too close. It was so hard. It was like trying to climb up out of a pool of molasses."

"I'm human again," Marco muttered. "Human! Toes. Hands. Arms and shoulders." He checked himself all over.

"Ha ha! That was close!" That was me. I hugged Jake before I realised what I was doing.

“That was fun,” Marco said. “Let's never, ever get that close to the deadline again.”

I titled my head so that Tobias would see my lips. “You said two minutes, right?” I made a mental note.

[Actually, you were seven minutes over the limit,] he admitted privately.

I resolved never to use that information. Two hours was the deadline, not two hours and seven minutes. That had been way too close. But at least we knew that two hours was definitely safe; for obvious reasons, I hadn't tried to find an exact deadline.

I didn't really notice the edge in Tobias' voice as he told me. I didn't realise until I was remembering the situation much later. But Tobias, without saying anything further, launched himself into the sky and flapped away.

“Tobias, no! Come back!” Rachel cried, but he didn't respond.

Rachel was already morphing a bald eagle when I put one hand on her shoulder. “No.”

“I'm going to bring him back.”

“If he wanted company, he wouldn't have left. I think he wants to be alone right now.”

I'm not sure that she agreed with me, but she demorphed. We walked back to our clothing, ignoring the way the stones and sticks on the forest floor cut our feet. Scratches were meaningless to us, and nobody wanted to try the wolves again. We didn't talk much.

There wasn't much to say.


	6. Chapter 6

I was crouched behind a broken piece of wall, peeking at Visser Three through a small hand mirror. He was prancing about, taunting the injured andalite prince. Menace radiated off him. Then, before my eyes, he melted and reformed into a huge, toothed monster. He picked up the andalite and held him over his mouth. [Now you will see what it means to defy the yeerk empire, Rachel,] he thundered.

Rachel?

The Visser was towering over Rachel, a helpless cat. She was going to die and it was going to be our fault, we weren't cautious enough, we pushed her into this. She tried to demorph right in front of the Visser, but seemed to be having trouble. She stopped, a hideous mix of cat and human. “Help me Cassie! Help me!”

All my friends were screaming, howling for my help. They were half-wolf, trapped, but I couldn't help them because I was half-wolf too, trying to balance a hairy, mostly-human body on little wolf legs, trying to breathe through my half-flattened face... and sitting behind us, watching us, was a fierce-faced red-tailed hawk... I was helpless...

Helpless and being dragged down the pier to the yeerk pool, they were going to enslave me, they were going to get my family and kill my friends... and I tripped and pitched forward into the yeerk pool, and fell into the ocean and sank down, the salt water burning my lungs...

“AAAAAARRRGH!!” I sat up in bed, gasping for air, the blessed air that my half-asleep brain was still convinced I was short of.

“Cassie?” My mother.

“I'm... I'm alright, mom.”

She opened the door and came in. She had half a cup of tea in one hand. “You sure? You've been having a lot of nightmares, sweetie.”

She didn't know the half of it. I didn't always wake up screaming. “Yeah, it's just... stress, you know.”

“What did you dream?”

I looked into her eyes. Was there a yeerk in there, wrapped around her brain? Impossible to know. “I... I dreamed that I fell into the sea. I was drowning.” The only non-yeerk-related part of the dream.

“Oh, sweetie. Want to talk about it?”

“Not really. Sorry.”

She gave me a brief hug and left. “Love you.”

“You, too.”

I sighed and laid back. Eventually, the andalites would come and save us. But I didn't think I'd sleep properly ever again.


	7. Chapter 7

We met at Jake's.

It wasn't the safest place to meet, but we'd timed it carefully so that Tom would be out at a Sharing meeting. And it would look less suspicious if our study group didn't appear to be avoiding certain households. My house was too far out of town to pass as a convenient place to use all the time. I had an armload of biology books with me; partly as part of our study group cover, and partly to read on the bus. I'd been learning everything I possibly could about animals in my spare time. If we were going to fight aliens by turning into animals, I was going to make sure we were the best we could possibly be at it.

I hadn't been to Jake's very often. We hadn't hung out as much as I'd have liked before the whole Animorph thing, but I'd been there a couple of times with Rachel. Homer bounded up to me as I walked up the normal, everyday path between the well-kept gardens and planted his paws against my chest, pushing me backwards. I knocked him down and gave him a pat.

Jake's mother, smiling politely and not looking remotely like a hostile alien invader, ushered me upstairs to Jake's room, where the others sat perched on various pieces of bedroom furniture. The window was open, but the sill was bare; Tobias wasn't there yet. I found a spot of bed next to Rachel and sat down.

We sat silently. It was a good thing Tom wasn't around; we definitely weren't acting like normal teenagers. Everyone kept glancing out the window. Tobias had paid a higher price than any of us. Would he show up? Or had he decided that enough was enough?

I couldn't help noticing how strained everyone looked. The danger, the secrecy, the nightmares... it was getting to us. We were too young for this. We weren't trained for this.

Maybe Marco was right about the whole thing.

With a whoosh and a thump, Tobias landed on the sill. [Hey, guys.]

“About time,” Marco said. I'm now sure that anybody else caught the hint of anger and relief in his semi-joking tone. “We've been waiting here for like an hour.” It'd been about two minutes.

[I'm a busy bird,] he said. [I lost track of time.]

"We better make this kind of quick," I said. "Ms. Lambert gave us papers to write by day after tomorrow, and I promised my dad I'd help him release this great horned owl. He was a mess. He'd landed on a power line and got fried. But he's ready to go now. We have a habitat picked out."

"Friend of yours, Tobias?" Marco teased. We all glared at him.

[We hawks don't hang with owls,] Tobias said, seeming unaffected by the jibe. [They do nights, we mostly do days.]

"He's a beautiful animal," I said.

[I see them sometimes at night,] Tobias said. [They're amazing. So cool. Totally silent. Their wings don't make a sound. One can fly an inch in front of your face and you won't hear it.]

"Um, okay, look, if Cassie has to get going, maybe we better deal with business," Jake said.

"Yeah, if you two are done with the bird-talk part of the meeting," Marco added.

"I have to get going soon, too," Rachel said. She looked a little embarrassed. "My gymnastics class is putting on an exhibition at the mall."

"Oh, I'm there," Marco crowed.

"No, you are not there," Rachel snapped. "None of you is going near that place. You know how I feel about having to put on stupid exhibitions."

Rachel is not one of those people who like to perform in front of a crowd.

"We have learned how the yeerks get their air and water," Jake said, trying to get down to business. "And we even know where they do it. And we more or less know when. There ought to be some way for us to use this information. Any ideas?"

Rachel shrugged. "We try and find a way to destroy the ship."

Marco raised his hand like he was in class. "How about if we, um, go back to talking about birds?"

Rachel ignored him, as she usually did. "Look, we find some way to destroy that ship and maybe the yeerks will run out of air and water. Maybe that will even mean that they have to give up and go home."

"Maybe," I said. "Or they may have a dozen more of those ships in different places all over the earth. We don't know how many ships they have. And even if we do cut off their supply lines, they won't have supplies for the return trip. We'd probably just make them desperate and force them to accelerate the invasion."

"This one would be all we need if - " Marco began to say. Then I guess he realized he was about to suggest something dangerous. "I mean... nothing."

"What?" Jake asked him. "'What were you going to say?"

Marco looked trapped. He shrugged. "Okay, look, what if that ship didn't get blown up or disintegrated or whatever. What if it was flying over the city and suddenly the cloaking device was turned off?"

We were all silent while we thought about that image. Suddenly a million people would look up in the sky and see a ship the size of a skyscraper.

"People would probably notice it," Jake said.

"Oh yeah, they would notice it," Rachel agreed. "Radar would see it, too. A million eyewitnesses. The Controllers would never be able to cover it up!"

[People would videotape it,] Tobias said. [They would take pictures. There would be radar tapes.]

Jake grinned. "The whole world would see. The entire human race would realize what was happening." He was getting excited now. "And then we could go to the authorities. The Controllers wouldn't be able to stop us! We could tell all we know!"

Rachel's eyes were gleaming. "We could tell them about The Sharing. We could turn in Chapman!"

"And you figure Visser Three and his pals are just going to sit around and do nothing?" Marco asked. "Like you said, we have no idea how many ships they have. Or how much power."

Jake looked a little disappointed.

[They don't have enough power to attack Earth openly,] Tobias said.

"And how do you know that?" Marco asked.

[Because they are going to a lot of trouble to keep themselves a big secret. You don't hide if you're tough enough to come out and kick butt in a fair fight.]

Marco nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, you're right."

"This could be our big chance," Rachel said. "Uncloak that ship, so the whole world can see."

"I hate to ask this," Marco said with a groan, "but how do you think you're going to do that?"

It was Jake who answered. "We'll have to get inside that ship." He winked at Marco. "Want to know how?"

Marco shook his head. "Not really."

"Through the water pipes. As fish."

Marco sighed. "Jake, I just told you I didn't want to know."

“Yes!” Rachel said, eyes sparkling. “It's brilliant!”

“Jake, you know I can't swim,” Marco said, embarrassed.

Rachel rolled her eyes. “I'm sure that as a fish, you'll figure it out.”

“I'm sure that as a fish we're going to have trouble moving about a yeerk ship. Has it occurred to you that we're going to have to demorph in the tank?”

“We'll support you,” I assured him.

“Uh-huh. If we live long enough to even get that far.” But he seemed to look slightly less bothered.

“Well, if that's everything,” I said, standing up. I had an owl to release.

And fish to research.


	8. Chapter 8

Fish.

I'd be lying if I said the idea didn't freak me out. So far half my morphs were basic, familiar mammals. Not a problem. The lizard had been... weird, but interesting in its own way, and the osprey, well, flying can make up for any weirdness. But a fish? Something without arms or legs at all? Something without _lungs_?

It wasn't a morph I was looking forward to.

We agreed to wait for the weekend before trying our ridiculously dangerous plan, simply due to the travel time involved. So I had a few days to think about fish. Naturally, the best fish would be one from the lake the ship was drawing water from. But that gave us no time to practise morphs. I wasn't happy about going into battle in a morph with no practice. I was even less happy about not knowing what sort of filters, pumps, or even pipe diameters we'd be facing while we let ourselves get sucked up into a hostile alien spaceship.

I went home. I read about biology. I looked at diagrams of fish and tried to imagine how it would feel to have a fish body, a fish brain, and beady little fish eyes. I went to sleep.

I watched the andalite prince get eaten and dodged Visser Three's fireballs as my head was forced towards the surface of the yeerk pool, and the heat fried my scaly skin and I couldn't breathe through dry gills and I couldn't morph, I was trapped halfway because time was up, trapped under the pleading gaze of a red-tailed hawk, and I pitched forward into the ocean...

The next day at school, Rachel looked even worse than I did. I was tired and scared. She looked like she'd been crying.

“Hey,” I said, as we met up at the entrance where a policeman Controller had grabbed me to drag me down to the yeerk pool.

“Hey,” she replied as we passed a small group of people I didn't know, although I was pretty sure I'd seen one of them on the infestation pier.

“Nightmares?” I asked quietly.

She shrugged. “Always.” She bit her lip. “Tobias...”

“Is he okay?”

“I don't know. I really don't know.”

By unspoken agreement, we headed for the nearest girls' bathroom. I handed Rachel a handful of tissues and she smiled and nodded gratefully, but seemed to be fighting the tears welling in her eyes. Rachel has a thing about crying in front of people.

“What happened?”

“He came to the... the gymnastics thing. Cassie, he was freaking out. I thought he was going to fly into something and kill himself. He said he was lost. He said... he said he'd killed.”

“Killed?” I frowned. “Did he mean like a lizard or a mouse or something?”

“I think so. He flew for the skylight and... if Marco hadn't broken it, I think he would've brained himself on it. Cassie, I'm worried he's going to do something stupid. He hasn't contacted me or Jake or anyone since and...” she closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath, fighting the sobs that threatened to wrack her body. “I'm just worried about him is all.”

“Jake ate a spider,” I said reasonably. “He was fine.”

“Yeah, but Jake got to go back to being human,” Rachel replied. “He got to throw those instincts away. Tobias doesn't get to relax like that. I think he's scared that he can't handle them.”

“He's handled them fine so far,” I said. At least, I thought he had. He'd seemed pretty calm when I'd tried to talk to him about it.

But he would, wouldn't he? I was basically a stranger to him.

“Yeah, until the part where he freaked out, nearly killed himself and abandoned us all.” Rachel was starting to sound angry. “When we find him I swear I will kill him myself.”

I smiled. “We'll look after school, ok?”

She nodded. “I'll tell the others.”

“We’ll find him,” I said, surprised at the passion in my own voice. Tobias had given more to the fight than any of us, and we couldn’t lose him. We couldn’t. If Tobias could hold on, after everything he’d been through, then maybe we all could.

We had enough to worry about with the yeerks. I didn’t want to have to worry about being broken down by our own minds as well.


	9. Chapter 9

That afternoon, we combed the city, carefully staggering our search patterns so that we wouldn't look too structured or like we were together, and calling out in private thought-speak. By the evening we'd started on the area around my house, and the forest.

“I don't get it! He's not anywhere!” Rachel grumbled, frustrated. We were out in the forest, within walking distance of my house but not close enough that a bunch of wild birds would be flying in and out under the noses of my possibly-Controller parents.

“Or he just doesn't feel like talking to us,” Marco pointed out. “Can you blame him? We're all about to turn into fish and swim to our deaths.”

I pulled my jacket on and scanned the sky. “Time?”

“We have about five minutes before Jake should be coming in,” Marco reported. “You know, even this staggering is gonna look weird to anybody paying attention. Less weird, but still weird.”

“Hopefully it look more odd-weird than guerrilla alien defenders-weird.”

“He'd respond if he heard us,” Rachel said with certainty. “If only to stop us worrying.”

I nodded. “We've only searched a small part of the forest,” I said. “Maybe he's further out. Maybe he's keeping an eye on the lake and we'll see him tomorrow.”

“Yeah, that's probably it.”

“Rachel...”

“Hmm?” I could see the warning in her eyes. But it had to be said. It was better to have her freaking out now that freaking out during the mission the next day.

“Rachel, the natural world isn't exactly... safe.”

“So?”

“So, we get a few animals in the rehab centre who have ended up on the wrong side of humans, but that's nothing compared to what animals do to each other. Or what wind or water or a simple lapse in concentration does to them. Tobias has human intelligence, but he doesn't have a lifetime of practice at being a hawk.”

She was silent. Staring. Daring me to spell it out.

"It might be that he hasn't responded because he can't.”

“He's not dead, Cassie.”

“He could be.”

“Well, he could not be. Maybe you just give up on people too quickly.” She stomped away, back toward the house.

“Hey!” Marco yelled, “Where are you going?”

“Home!”

“But – ”

“Trust me, Marco, it's better to let her go.” I sat down against a tree and squinted up at the sky, looking for the shadow of a peregrine falcon. Hoping he'd prove me wrong by showing up with a red-hawk in tow. But I knew he wouldn't. Tobias... wasn't the most responsible person, what with the cavalier attitude to time limits and strange risk-taking behaviour that had got him trapped in the first place, but I didn't think he'd just run off with no explanation. Not for that long, anyway.

Sure enough, Jake turned up alone and on time. “Where's Rachel?”

“Went home.” We exchanged a glance. Jake knew Rachel's moods as well as I did.

“Not a bad idea,” Jake said. “We should all go do our homework or something. It's gonna be a busy weekend.” He looked... not tired, we were all tired. Listless. His words were almost toneless and he barely seemed to register anything he looked at. He'd looked right at me without seeming to notice me. That had never happened before.

I glanced at Marco, who was still scanning the sky, his face rigid with solemn determination. Did he expect to see Tobias glide casually overhead or something? I matched my pace to Jake's as we walked back to the house.

“You can't blame yourself, Jake.”

“Who said I blamed myself?”

“Your expression. This whole thing is risky business, and Tobias... look, it's a miracle we all got out of the yeerk pool at all...”

“I'm not sure Tobias _did_ get out of the yeerk pool.” Jake wasn't looking at me. I knew how he felt. The whole plan had been to go in to rescue his brother.

Sort of.

There wasn't really much I could say to comfort Jake at that point. I didn't even have any thoughts to comfort myself. It was Marco who broke the descending silence.

“Saturday,” he said, “we pull this off. We show these slimy bastards to the world. And then the professionals can handle this. We don't lose anybody else. Everything is about completing this one last mission, for Tobias.”


	10. Chapter 10

A couple of days passed. We kept searching.

I thought about fish.

Friday afternoon, I led the others through the forest. Not even the absence of Tobias in our midst could keep us silent for long.

“Cassie,” Jake eventually asked, “why are you carrying a sack full of smelly meat on a stick?”

“It's not a sack, it's a stocking.” I moved my bait closer so that he could have a better look. He backed away. “And it's for fishing.”

“I'm no expert on fishing,” Marco said, eyebrow raised, “but doesn't it work better with a hook and line?”

“Depends what you're trying to catch.” We'd reached the edge of the small river that runs through the forest. The water was low and barely moving. Good. “We know that we're almost certainly going into freshwater, but beyond that we don't know what this lake we're going into is like. We don't know about the ship either. And we can't exactly go fishing in the lake itself, that's way too dangerous.” I lowered the bag of ripe meat into the barely-moving water and laid the attached pole carefully down on the riverbank. “Fish are... well, maybe not delicate, but quite possibly too delicate for the pressures and speeds we'll be looking at here. You saw the size of those tanks and how fast they filled. What we want is something small, and fast, and light, and tough. But something that other fish aren't going to want to eat before we get inside.”

“So we're fishing for...?”

“Eels.”

“Eels?” Marco raised his eyebrows. “I'm sorry, eels? Big slimy water-snakes?”

“They're not snakes,” I said patiently. “Would you rather be a salmon or something?”

“And not be able to stop thinking about how tasty I'd be grilled with a slice of lemon? Bring on the slimy not-snakes.”

I nodded. “If we were looking for eels to eat, we'd pull this up in about ten minutes and club whatever's attached on the back of the head. But we don't want eels that big. We want little kid eels, and I'm not sure whether we can drag them up this way or not.” I frowned. “Normally we'd trap them, but we don't have any eel traps.”

“Then how are we catching them?” Rachel asked.

I grinned and looked at Marco. “By talon. Fishing is what ospreys do. Do you want it, or should I?”

Marco, surprisingly, didn't bother with a clever quip. He just shrugged and started morphing. Ten minutes later, he pulled a two-inch-long eel out of the water with a sarcastic grumble about how fast and tiny the stupid little things were and dropped it into my hands.

Catching the eel, as it turned out, wasn't the hard part. Holding onto the eel was the hard part.

“Aargh!” I resisted the urge to shake it off my hand as it sunk its sharp little teeth into my thumb. I started acquiring it. It stopped thrashing, but didn't let go. “Okay, can everyone grab some eel DNA before this thing eats my hands?”

Rachel reached out and put two fingers against the eel's back. It immediately let go of me and latched onto her finger. “Argh! Does this thing have rabies or something?!”

“No, they're just like that.” I went to put my bleeding thumb in my mouth, caught myself at the last second, and morphed my hand into a hoof and back to heal instead. “Marco, are you human yet?”

[It's been like five seconds! Not all of us are – ] … “No' awov ush are ash gud ash yu, Cashi,” Marco slurred through still-forming lips.

“Well hurry up,” Rachel said, practically throwing the eel at Jake, who nearly dropped it. It survived Jake's grim stranglehold long enough to be passed to a human Marco, who then tossed it back into the river with slightly more force than necessary.

“Great, now we can all be vicious little fish-monsters,” Marco said once he'd stopped sucking a bite wound on his hand. “Can we go home now? We have to save the world tomorrow.”

Jake nodded. “Let's go, everyone. We've got a big weekend. If we do this right…”

“If we do this right,” Marco said with a hint of glee in his voice, “our last big weekend.”


	11. Chapter 11

I had a lot of homework to do. It was really difficult. It was especially difficult because I couldn't hold my pen. I didn't have hands, and my stupid little eel fins were of no use. I tried to demorph, but it was hard, so hard. Hands, I needed hands; hands to do my homework, to keep my grade up, to keep my parents in the dark and keep them safe. But I couldn't demorph. [Help me,] I told the hawk on the branch above me. He looked down with his dispassionate, piercing hawk eyes, spread his wings, and took to the air.

[Help me, Tobias!] I called, and he dropped down, talons out; talons that came for me that squeezed.

Something howled in a strangled cry that was half wolf and half human and entirely full of despair. I thought I recognised the voice, but it was hard to focus.

[You're too late, Cassie,] Tobias said as his beak pierced my eye. [You're seven minutes too late.]

 _Demorph_! I begged, but I didn't know if I was talking to myself, or to my friends trapped as wolves, or to Tobias as he calmly pulled chunks out of my tail. _Demorph!_

The branch above us moved and creaked violently in the wind, tapping on something. _Tap, tap, tap_.

I opened my eyes and focused blearily on my alarm clock. 4:03am.

 _Tap, tap, tap_. Something against my window. I rolled over.

It was a hawk.

“Tobias!” I opened the window and he hopped in. “Where have you been?”

[Around.] He had a decidedly unhawklike chagrined manner. [Rachel said you were all worried so I figured I'd just, y'know, drop in on everyone...]

“Worried?! That's one way of putting it! I thought you were dead! Jake's been really depressed, it was all we could do to make him show up for classes... we've been looking everywhere...” I paused and took a deep breath. Getting angry was not going to help. “Are you okay?”

[Yeah. Maybe. Let's just get this mission out of the way and save everyone from the aliens.]

“You are so not okay.”

[I just... I killed, and it freaked me out a bit. I stopped... I stopped fighting. I was lost for a bit, but there was this camper, he'd got on the wrong side of the yeerks and... look, human life is important. I just... I think we need to keep fighting. So we need to focus on this mission. I'll see you tomorrow.]

“Do you want to talk about it?”

[No.]

“Well, if you ever do...”

[I know.] He ducked back out of the window. [I have to go get yelled at by Marco now. Sleep well, Cassie.]

“You, too.”

Whatever Tobias said, he wasn't okay. But he was alive.

Alive was a good start.


	12. Chapter 12

[So you're taking us to a bear cave, Tobias?] Marco asked. We were loping through the forest in wolf form.

[Yep.] Tobias sounded a little smug. I think he liked making Marco feel uncomfortable.

[A bear cave. With actual bears. Big grizzly bears that might want to tear us into little grizzly snacks?]

[Not grizzlies, not in this area,] I pointed out. [They'd be black bears. Much smaller.]

[Swell. I am totally reassured. Just a small bear cave.]

[The bears are long gone,] Tobias said. [Trust me. I spied it out yesterday. I've seen raccoons and skunks running in and out of there. They wouldn't be doing that if there were bears.]

[Excuse me. Jake? Did Tobias just say 'skunks'? I must have heard wrong, because only an idiot would think hanging out with skunks is a good idea.]

[We're not going to hang out with skunks,] Jake said patiently.

[The skunks don't live there,] Tobias said. [They just run in there to get away from predators.] There was a slight pause as everybody avoided thinking about how Tobias knew what animals did to get away from predators.

[Look, it's close to the lake but I don't think the yeerks know about it,] Tobias said. [Sorry, but there wasn't a convenient Marriott hotel where I could get you a room for the night.]

[So, that means no room service, either?] Marco asked. [Well, okay. As long as this cave gets cable. The big game's on ESPN tonight.]

The plan was pretty simple. Arrive before the yeerks did their sweep for campers and hikers. Hide out until the ship arrived. Morph and get in the water. Get inside the ship.

Yep. Simple.

We reached the cave with plenty of time to spare on the two-hour deadline.

[Oh, this looks lovely,] Marco said, looking at the thorns and a scrub brush around the cave entrance.

[I haven't really been inside,] Tobias admitted.

The opening to the cave was no more than two feet across and about four feet high. It was easy for Jake and Rachel, in their wolf morphs, to leap nimbly through. Unless there really was a bear inside, they would scare off whatever might be in there.

[Empty,] Rachel reported. [Nothing in here but a couple of spiders and a scared mouse.]

[Chase him out here,] Tobias joked. [I'm hungry.] Marco laughed.

We all headed into the cave and demorphed. Nearly being trapped once was enough. The cave was cold and a little damp. Not the ideal environment for a bunch of kids in skintight clothing to hang around in, but we only had a couple of hours before the ship was due to arrive.

I wasn't planning on just hanging around, anyway.

In the floor of the cave was a slight depression that was filled with water. A shallow puddle. But deep enough. I poked the water and tasted it; just a little brackish. Perfect. I caught Jake's eye. He nodded.

“Alright guys,” Jake said. “Practise time.”

Eels are creepy to look at. They are even creepier to turn into.

I'd barely started shrinking when my eyes rolled down to the tip of my nose. My view of the others, watching me with trepidation and concern, greyed out – eels can see, but not well. My nose and chin stretched out, out, out around my new needle teeth. My forehead collapsed. Bones liquefied, and my body caved in on itself until it was pencil-thin. Arms collapsing into my sides. Legs withering away completely. I felt a tickly, itchy feeling as a long fin sprouted all the way down my back and gills opened up behind my mouth.

Teeny-tiny scales popped up all over my new body like goose pimples. Then an oily, slippery goop drenched me, oozing from my own body.

Ick. Not a fun morph. I managed to flop myself into the tiny pool.

[How is it?] Tobias asked me.

[Not... not bad, actually,] I said. [I mean, creepy and all, but on the whole not hard to control. This thing is mostly hungry and wishing it had some mud to burrow in.] I wriggled experimentally. Muscles stretched on one side of my body, tightened on the other. I began to move with a fluid, shimmying motion. The water wasn't deep enough to swim properly, I couldn't dive or anything, but I could dart around.

[Ok,] Tobias reported, [the others are joining you now.] It wasn't until they dropped into the water that I even noticed them.

But boy, did I notice them. I caught a flash of movement to my right. Food. Live food!

Zip! Chomp!

[Hey! That would be my tail! Whoever just bit me, get a grip,] Marco complained.

Man, for a scrawny little thing with a pencil body, the eel sure was aggressive. I could suddenly sympathise with the scrappy little thing that had tried to eat my hand. The eel's instincts were telling me to bite anything that moved and ask questions later.

And to eat. I wanted live food.

Then... Chomp! Sharp teeth bit into my midsection.

[Okay, everyone stop biting!] I yelled. [Including me!]

I clamped down on the eel brain, pushing the simple, screaming instincts away. No biting, I told myself. No biting.

But then, something moved and...

No! I stopped myself in the nick of time.

[I am one mad little worm,] Rachel said with a laugh. [This eel has serious attitude.]

[And it's an attitude we need to learn to curb before we're all moving through crowded pipes together,] Jake said.

I searched for something in the eel's brain that would calm it down, or at least make it freeze. A fear response? Predators? I brought to mind bigger eels, eels with huge teeth... no, that just had me darting down, bumping my nose on the stone floor of the cave, trying to find something to burrow and hide in.

Movement! Food!

_No!_

Through sheer force of will, we had all managed to clamp down on our instincts. Mostly. We sat in the water eyeing each other. [Is this anything like a shrew?] I asked Rachel. [Because it is nothing like a lizard.]

Rachel mentally chuckled, filling my mind with an odd sense of secondhand amusement. [No. A shrew would fight if cornered, but this thing just wants to eat everything. Eels are crazy.] She didn't say that as if it was a mark against them.

Eventually, Tobias reported that the camper-sweep had passed, and we demorphed.

[I don't like this plan,] he said suddenly.

Jake looked up at him in surprise. "Tobias, you were in on the planning right from the start."

[Look, don't you guys realise how dangerous this could be?]

"I realise," Marco said. "I realise it plenty. I also realise that if we pull this off, we can hand this stuff over to somebody else, somebody trained for fighting and spy stuff, instead of nearly getting ourselves killed while we utterly fail to stop alien bodysnatchers from taking over our planet. I thought you were the big, gung-ho yeerk-killer. Suddenly now you're afraid?"

[I'm not afraid for me,] he said. [I'll be flying around safely while the four of you go up into that ship.]

Ah. "It's hard standing by while someone else is risking their life," I said. "I understand how you feel. But there have been times when you were the one taking the risks."

[Not risks like this.]

“Charging into the yeerk pool wasn't risky?”

"Look, we don't have time to debate this," Jake said. "We have a plan we've all agreed to. Let's get on with it before the yeerks show up."

"We'll be okay," Rachel said confidently as we crawled out of the cave. She brushed some nonexistent dirt off her thighs. “Now for the hard part.”

“From here on in, the whole plan is hard part,” Marco remarked drily.

“Well, now for the first hard part.”

[I'll scout,] Tobias said. [Stay hidden until I give the all-clear.]

At Tobias' all-clear, we'd sneak down to the lake and morph just as the ship started picking up water.

After a few minutes of silence, Tobias said, [We might have a problem. He's here.]

We didn't need to ask who. We could hear the edge in his voice. The edge that comes from an aura of menace and fear and seeing some very, very bad things.

Visser Three.


	13. Chapter 13

“Well,” Marco said, “that pretty much kills the plan. Good show, everyone, and better luck next time I guess.”

“We're not giving up because of that overgrown slug,” Rachel hissed. It didn't seem like she was over their last encounter.

"What is he doing here?" I asked. “He has to be too busy for this sort of thing.”

[I guess he just came to oversee this trip. I... did sorta help a camper get away last time.]

"He's here to kick butt on his boys," Marco said, trying to sound tough. "They screwed up and now he's here to make sure they don't do it again."

“I doubt he came all the way here over one camper.”

[It doesn't really matter why he's here,] Tobias pointed out. [He's here. And there are extra hork- bajir and the whole crowd is way nervous. One of the hork-bajir Draconed a deer that just happened to be walking by.]

"A deer?" I exclaimed. "Those stupid jerks. Deer never hurt anyone."

[Yeah, well, I guess they're just assuming that any animals could be andalite bandits.]

I bit my lip. That made sense. If they'd captured that camper and his memories told them he'd been guided by a telepathic voice, they'd know we were in the area. Maybe that's why the Visser was there.

[The plan was for you to sneak down to the water, morph as soon as you got there, and head out for the ship's water-intake pipe,] Tobias pointed out. [It was always a dangerous plan, but now it's impossible. Four of you walking down to the water, then morphing? That's not going to happen. Not as alert as these guys are now.]

"Not with Visser Three hanging around," Marco agreed.

"I disagree." It was Rachel. "I think we should still try this. Look, if we pull this off, if we manage to get inside that ship and disable the cloaking device while they're over the city... this whole thing will be over."

Jake jumped in to support her. "We've always said, if there was just some way to show the world what was happening... well, this is the way. This would be way too big for the Controllers to cover up. Even if the mayor and the governor and the entire police force were Controllers, they couldn't cover up something like this."

[Jake, you're not listening. I'm telling you: there is no way you four can cruise down to the lake. You'll be dead before you take five steps!]

There was fear in his mental voice, fear for us. I knew fear. He was so different than the version my subconscious had constructed in my latest nightmare, telling me I was too late and wrapping his... huh.

“Actually,” I said reluctantly, “there may be a way.” I couldn't believe I was suggesting this, but they were right. This was worth the risk. “Eels can survive out of water for a little while. And the eel we're morphing is tiny.” I glanced at Tobias. “Not really any weight at all for a red-tailed hawk.”

Well. That idea got everyone's attention, I can tell you.

"Excuse me?" Marco shrilled. "Are you saying you want me to not just morph into an eel, but to morph into an eel out of water and then be carried through the air by a bird?"

"I don't 'want' you to do anything. I'm just saying it could work."

"It would work," Jake said. He and Rachel exchanged a slightly insane look that said, 'Okay, let's try it!'

[No way,] Tobias said. [You guys are crazy. No offense, but this raises the danger level way beyond what it was to start with.]

We took a quick vote. Rachel was emphatically for. Jake was for. Marco was against until Rachel reminded him that if the mission worked it'd be the last one ever, then he thought for a moment and decided to abstain. Tobias was against. Terrified as I was, I voted for, but not before deducing that Tobias' vote was based on concern for us. If he was voting against because he didn't want to fly in there, I wasn't about to make him.

Not too far away, we could hear the supply ship descending over the lake. Rachel licked her lips and glanced at Tobias. “I'll go first.”


	14. Chapter 14

It looked like Tobias would be taking risks after all.

Rachel was barely fully eel before he swooped down and picked her up. [You ok?]

[Apart from not being able to breathe, you mean?]

Tobias was already gone by the time she'd finished her reply. He was back in less than a minute, and I was mostly eel. He waited patiently for me to finish.

My fins had barely sprouted when I felt scaly talons close around my tiny, slimy body. [Try not to move too much,] Tobias said gently in what I assumed to be private thought-speak. I clamped down hard on the eel's urge to struggle out of the predator's grip. A slimy coating and an energetic wriggle might've saved the DNA donor's ancestors countless times, but it would be the death of me. Already, the lack of water was a pressing weight in my body.

I didn't move. But I could feel myself starting to slip.

Tobias tightened his grip a little, but he had to be careful not to crush me. I slid further.

[Cassie...]

[There's absolutely nothing I can do that won't make this worse,] I said.

[Hold on for ten more seconds.]

Three seconds later, I slipped.

[Cassie!]

Air! Movement! _Chomp!_

[Aargh!] Tobias cried out in a mixture of surprise and pain.

[Sorry,] I said, dangling by my teeth from the leg of a red-tailed hawk.

[Good catch. Prepare to let go in 3... 2... 1...]

I let go, and dropped into the lake. Air! I mean, water! Whatever, I could breathe! I pumped a mouthful of water over my gills and felt the burning need within me relax.

Finally, room to swim! I darted forward. Darted up. Darted down. I tried not to move too far; I didn't want to move too far from Rachel, although I couldn't see her anywhere. I could feel the pressure of a nearby intake pipe.

[Alright,] Jake said eventually, [We're all here. Let's do this.]

I followed the current toward the intake pipe.

[Is it starting to occur to anybody else how monumentally stupid this whole plan is?] Marco asked.

[You're not helping, Marco,] Rachel replied. [Shut up.]

I found the entrance to the pipe. The water pulled me in, around a metal grate on the mouth of the pipe with inch-wide holes; I slipped through easily. The water was moving incredibly fast, but I struggled to move even faster; it was the only way to keep my head and tail in the right orientation and maintain any control over my passage.

[I'm just saying that the water in this tank might be filtered in orbit, or it might be filtered here. So we may or may not slam into a grate too small to slip through at incredible speed any second.]

I was pulled up the pipe. It was too dark to see anything.

[The yeerks might not bother sterilising their water either, or we might suddenly find ourselves in bleach or boiled or irradiated at any moment.]

I was dragged around a U-bend.

[I don't know what kind of pump they're using to do this. If we're really lucky it might not chop up or crush us though.]

I moved over the U-bend and suddenly the water wasn't dragging any more.

[Then we just need to worry about whether there's breathable air in the tank, which we didn't try to verify in any way. Because if there isn't then demorphing is gonna be tricky.]

[I'm at the water's surface,] I reported. [Going to demorph and see if I can see anything.] I didn't wait for a reply; I just focused on my human body. Eyes first; I wanted eyes.

[See? It's fine,] Rachel said. [You are such a pessimist.]

[Realist. Like realistically, she's not going to see anything in a pitch-dark tank.]

[I see a grate,] I reported, still mostly eel. [It's pretty high up. No telling what's out there yet.] The faint light from the grate wasn't enough to see anything else in the tank. Why didn't we have any low-light vision morphs?! That was such a basic thing!

[A grate? This thing is going into space and it's not even a sealed tank?! How does any of that work in zero gravity?!]

[Let's just demorph and wait for this thing to fill,] Jake interjected. [Cassie, when you can reach the grate, remove it if there are no Controllers around.]

[And if she can't?] Marco asked.

[Then you go gorilla and tear the thing off.]

[Yeah, except he can't swim,] Rachel said. [Human Marco is one thing, but how are we supposed to support his big gorilla butt?]

We waited.

The tank filled.

The grate, I realised as it got closer, was a metal grid covering a round hole that was clearly sealed with a cap. I supposed it was to let the air out while the tank filled, meaning we wouldn't have much time between being able to reach it, and having to get out of there before the hole was closed.

[Righto, let's demorph and get ready for battle morphs as soon as we're out of this thing,] Jake said. [Marco, give Rachel and me a minute or so's head start.] Around me, I heard uncoordinated splashing as Rachel and Jake fought to get oxygen while their bodies changed. Then Marco started demorphing. I heard him close by and reached out blindly. I gripped flesh and held him above water as best I could.

The pump shut off. The water stopped rising.

We were still too low to reach the grate.

“Lizards,” Marco spluttered. “Jake and Cassie might get out before...”

“Too late,” Jake said. The grate above us was closing. I could hear the rumble of the ship's engines and we started rising.

“I'm going elephant,” Rachel said. “Let's tear our way out of this thing and go down fighting.”

“Battle morphs, everyone,” Jake agreed. “Rachel first.”

We fought to keep our heads above water as it sloshed around me to accommodate the growing bulk of an elephant. I was gently nudged aside by Rachel's trunk as she searched for a tank wall. [Ok, I'm in position.] Jake and I pulled Marco over her back before beginning to morph ourselves. My only real battle-capable morph was the wolf. I couldn't see the others morph but I could guess what they were; Jake in his tiger morph, and Marco as a gorilla. We were barely half-done when Jake said, [Ok, Rachel; go for it.]

[Here goes.]

_Boinnnng!_

The sound of an elephant ramming into the wall of a water tank sang around us.

_Boinnnng!_

The air trembled. I couldn't figure out which way was up.

“Wraaaaarh!” Rachel trumpeted in frustration.

[Rachel!] Marco snapped. [Confined space! Leave some of us for the yeerks to cut up!]

[That is so not funny, Marco.]

[Neither is this! Their Bug fighters shred like tissue paper and we can't break out of a _water tank_ with an _elephant_?! What kind of stupidity is that?!]

[Oh god,] I muttered, trying to keep control. [We are dead. We are all dead.]

[No we're not,] Marco snapped. [I mean, yes, we are, but we were from the start. This is a minor setback.]

[Marco,] I said patiently, [When this thing docks, one of three things will happen. We'll be immediately discovered and killed. We'll be put through some sort of water purification process and killed. Or we'll sit in this tank until we drown.]

[So now Cassie's the pessimist? I thought this was Invasion of the Body Snatchers, not Freaky Friday.]

[Invasion of the Body Snatchers doesn't have animal shapeshifters in it,] Jake pointed out, [And for Freaky Friday you'd switch bodies, not personalities.]

[Well I'm sorry if my fiction analogies aren't perfect, I'm trying not to drown here. What I meant was, if we can alert some Controllers that we're in here, they might be stupid enough to open the grate.]

[Or if they have any common sense, they'll let us drown,] I pointed out.

[Is that really any different to the situation we're in now? Besides,] he added, and I could feel Marco's grin in his words, [I never said anything about letting them know it's us.]


	15. Chapter 15

We elected Jake to do the talking. He and I were lizards, clinging to the wall of the tank just above the waterline. We had to be close to the water so that the two eels circling beneath us could keep breathing until the last possible moment.

[I've gotta say, Marco,] I told him, [I did not expect this sort of crazy suicidal plan from you.]

[Me neither, but this crazy suicidal plan is just _slightly less_ suicidal than the wait-to-die plan. And need I point out that I hate living in a world where that sentence makes perfect sense?]

[Guys, please,] Jake said, [I'm trying to focus here.]

It occurred to me that Rachel hadn't said much at all. [You ok?] I asked her privately.

[I'm fine. Why?]

[You're just not saying much.]

[I'm keeping Tobias updated on the plan.]

But we should be pretty far from the lake by now... [Is Tobias following the ship?!]

[Not so much following as using as a shield. There are a lot of guns pointed at him right now. And Visser Three is out there. So can we hurry this up before the yeerks find a way to kill him without damaging the ship?]

[For this long?! How did...?] Not important right now. I switched to include the others in my thought-speak. [Ready, Jake?]

[As ever.] I felt him take the mental equivalent of a steadying breath. [EVERY SECOND THAT PASSES BEFORE ONE OF YOU IDIOTS OPENS THIS TANK IS ANOTHER LIFETIME YOU'LL WISH YOU WERE NEVER BORN! GET THE WATER TANK OPEN RIGHT NOW!]

[He's not a cartoon villain, Jake!] Marco admonished.

[Fine, next time you play the terrifying evil alien invader,] Jake snapped.

Marco was right; Jake didn't sound exactly like Visser Three. He didn't sound much at all like him, in fact. But he was shouting telepathically, and the crew were probably terrified, and if we were lucky it _just might_ be enough. So long as they weren't getting up-to-date commentary on what was happening outside the ship, because if they could see Visser Three our plan was shot. Sure enough, it was less than a minute later that we heard the grate start to move.

[HURRY UP, YOU INSUFFERABLE FOOLS!]

I felt a sharp pain in my back as an eel sank its teeth into me, careful not to injure my spine, and I bolted for the opening hole. Jake and I, each carrying an eel, darted out of the hole and ran down amongst the feet of the four confused-looking human-Controllers.

[WELL? GET ME A LADDER!]

I could've sworn that Jake was enjoying this.

But their panic and confusion wouldn't last long, and we had more important things to think about. Like finding somewhere to demorph before Rachel and Marco suffocated. We ran under feet in what turned out to be a broad metal service corridor. Flat walls! No cover! We rounded a corner, another corner...

There was a dead end, blocked off with thick white pipes with large circular handles on them. There didn't look to be space enough for humans to crawl in there, but there might be space enough for a couple to shelter there. If they didn't mind being squished. It was pretty hard for anybody in the corridor to see behind the pipes. I followed Jake as he dashed under them.

[Here's your stop, guys,] he said. [Start demorphing.]

[Hmm?] Rachel mumbled in my mind. One of the eels was already growing and sprouting Marco's dark hair; the other just lay there limply.

[Rachel, demorph! Now!] I snapped. [Human, Rachel! Your hair, remember your pretty blonde hair?]

Slowly, the eel began to grow.

Rachel expanded in size. Tiny fingers appeared on the edges of her eel body. Marco's tail split into two rubbery protrusions that were quickly filled with bones and became legs. His eyes moved up his face. Rachel's jaw bent, changed.

Soon, each was dragging air into newly-formed lungs.

[Yes! That's it!] I exclaimed.

“Tobias says the ship has stopped moving,” Rachel muttered when she could. “We're high over the forest. No humans are gonna see anything out here.”

[Thoughts?] Jake said.

“We could get the hell off this ship,” Marco replied.

“Thanks for that, Einstein,” Rachel said. “How?”

[How high are we?] I asked.

“Too high to survive a fall. Even as a lizard. I say we fight our way out.”

[You think that'll work?] Jake asked.

“You think hiding in these pipes will work? Our only chance is to bring the ship down.”

From the direction of the water tank, shouts of alarm were starting. We didn't have much time.

[Marco, we need gorilla strength to bust through these pipes,] Jake said. [Rachel, go small so he doesn't crush you.]

Rachel nodded and started morphing. Marco muttered something about the ridiculous amount of morphing we were doing before starting his own changes.

[Can I just remind everyone,] Rachel the shrew said from her position cowering on the floor, [how much I hate this morph?]

Marco was already pushing massive pipes away with his powerful arms. They bent and broke, leaking some kind of red goo that I hoped wasn't deadly all over him. As soon as there was room, I started demorphing. Was I imagining things, or were the changes coming slower this time? [Let's never do anything that requires this much morphing again. I hope there's not some kind of... morph limit.] I crawled out of the way, part-wolf, and the others began to demorph.

Then the corridor filled with Controllers.

At one end, a gorilla. Behind it, an unidentifiable mass of half-formed limbs and wolf fur – me. Two humans, frozen, shielded from view by our bulk and some wrecked pipes. All of us splattered with red liquid. At the other end of the corridor, humans and hork-bajir, all armed with Dracon beams. They were frozen in surprise, but that wouldn't last long.

We had no hope of crossing the corridor before they could fire.

[Morph small and run,] Marco told us, planting his feet, shielding us with his bulk. [Don't even think of arguing, there isn't time.]

“Stun only!” somebody shouted. “The Visser wants them alive!”

And behind us, the hull of the ship burned and tore away. More red fluid flooded the corridor, gushing from burned and severed pipes.

They'd missed?! No time to wonder; Rachel and Jake dropped out of the hole, burned flesh already being replaced by feathers. Marco turned, grabbed me, and physically threw me through the hole before flopping through himself, paying no heed to the lasers that burned his body. One of his arms seemed to be paralysed. [Demorph!] I shouted, as if he needed to be told.

Falling, praying that the strange red liquid obscured my form enough that nobody realised I was human, I glimpsed the cause of our liberation; Tobias, flying inches from the supply ship, Dracon beam clutched in his claws burning scars in its hull. Below me, a bald eagle and a peregrine falcon stretched their wings and skimmed the treetops; I focused on osprey. _Change, change!_

Above, the supply ship itself groaned and began to fall out of the sky. Below, more birds, real birds, started to take flight; Dracon beams lanced down and vaporised them at apparent random. I lost track of my friends as I shrank and feathers sprouted from my skin.

I was worn out. Too worn out for this. The changes came slowly. My mouth hardened into a beak as a Dracon beam fired blindly into the deluge of red liquid above me. My feet grew scaly and heels turned to back claws as the trees rushed to meet me. I flared my newly formed wings mere inches above the treetops.

Marco had had to demorph all the way. He dropped beneath the trees, a ball of feathers and limbs.

[MARCO!] I couldn't stop; I had to duck beneath the trees away from the Dracon beams that were striking everything that moved.

[I'm ok, I think!] Marco replied quickly.

I focused on dodging tree branches, letting the osprey do the work. Ospreys aren't built to fly among trees, but I couldn't afford to rise above them. And there was no time to stop and morph something else. Flaming branches crashed down around me. I couldn't see the others; I just hoped they were safe.

Amid heat, noise and fleeing wildlife, I flew.


	16. Chapter 16

A tap on the door. “Cassie? How are you feeling?”

Dad.

I dragged my eyes open, only to immediately squint against the sun. It was almost ten o'clock, according to my alarm. Wow. I'd really slept in. Had I slept all through the night? Awesome.

“I'm fine, Dad,” I called back, not in the least surprised that my voice was scratchy and trembling. I'd trudged home the previous night and went straight to bed, claiming I felt sick. Probably why my parents had let me sleep in.

I still felt weary. Morphing really takes a lot out of you, it seemed. But I got up. Couldn't look suspicious. There could be enemies anywhere.

I had breakfast. I fed animals. I started cleaning a cage. I looked up at a sudden fluttering sound, and saw a red-tailed hawk land on a beam above me.

“Tobias!”

[Everyone got home safe. Just thought you'd want to know.]

I nodded. “Thanks.” I bit my lip. Would our little band still hold together after this? Or would we decide that Marco was right all along? I knew I didn't want to jump back into anything like the situation we'd just escaped. “Come down here, let me check you for injuries.”

[I'm fine, Cassie.]

“You got shot at, bitten, and generally knocked around. Over several hours. At least let me make sure nothing gets infected.”

After a moment's hesitation, he alighted on the cage in front of me and allowed me to lift his wings and check him for cuts. A couple of minor bumps and burns. Some missing tail feathers. The shallow bite mark I'd left on his leg. Nothing that wouldn't heal.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

[I don't seem to be hurt much at all.]

“So not what I meant. Are you okay?”

[Are you?]

I sighed. “I'd like to disinfect that leg wound, if you'll let me.”

[If it'll make you feel better.]

While I was working, I said, “I'm sorry, Tobias.”

[Sorry? For what?] he asked, as if he was genuinely confused.

I sighed. “Jake blames himself, you know. For you...”

[Getting trapped.]

“Yeah. I think he feels responsible just in general, but in this case the plan was to rescue his brother. He thinks it's his fault.”

[It isn't.]

“I know. Because the Tom plan, that we could've taken our time with. That we could've planned for, done safely. Instead it was a haphazard, dangerous rush job.” I looked up from the clean wound to meet the cold, unforgiving gaze of the raptor, a face that couldn't portray Tobias' emotions like a human one could. I wish I could project Tobias' emotions onto that face, to pretend he had an expression, but I'd never really gotten to know Tobias-the-human. “It was rushed, because you went in to rescue me. I was stupid and incautious enough to get caught.”

Tobias was silent for a long moment.

Finally, he asked, [Was this Tom's fault?]

“What? No!”

[So when Tom gets overpowered by aliens and we go in to rescue him he's innocent, but when you do, you're guilty? Was this Prince Elfangor's fault? He gave us the power to morph in the first place.]

“I'm not saying we randomly blame everyone with any causal link to the raid.”

[No, just you. Cassie, you didn't see Jake right before that raid. It was never going to be careful or planned. He was gung-ho and ready to charge in before you were caught.]

“So you do blame Jake?”

[I don't blame anyone, except maybe the yeerks. Cassie, before this whole thing started, my home life wasn't really that great. I'm not saying that being a hawk is necessarily a good thing, but it's not like I left behind grieving parents or anything. I just...] he shrugged, a very unbirdlike gesture. [Look, we're all alive. Frankly I think that's a much better outcome than we've had any right to expect.]

“I guess that's true.”

[Um, Cassie?]

“Hmm?”

[Well, you know about... animals and stuff...] Tobias sounded awkward. [After the... stuff this week, I'm, I'm not really sure...]

“If you're looking for advice on your unique situation I don't really have any information that can help you,” I said apologetically. “You have human intelligence and a hawk body. I think the rest is really up to you.”

[Rachel is pretty insistent that I'm human.]

“Maybe she's right. I wouldn't know.”

[I just don't know how human I can stay.]

I nodded and headed to one corner of the barn. Two wolves, the donors of the Animorphs' wolf DNA, crouched in individual cages. “Remember our wolf friends? This one here, the male, was shot by a bored human with a BB gun. He's not the first such patient, and he won't be the last. A few days ago we released a bird that somebody had deliberately chased down with a car. Have you gone around hurting animals for no reason except that you were bored?”

[No...]

“We've found aliens now. We're living in a community with other sentient beings. It's a hostile one right now, but there are good aliens out there too. And I think that if we as a species are going to expand, we need to learn to let go of the notion that humans are inherently better, that to be 'inhuman' is to be bad. I mean, humans have done some pretty amazing things. But the idea that humans are better than everybody else _by default_ is, I think, about to become very outdated. I can't help you with your identity crisis, except to say that you dove into danger to get us on that ship] without even thinking about your own safety, you hung around to keep us safe, and you saved all our lives. And today, while I assume the rest of the team has been as overwhelmed and avoiding contact as much as me, you're the one making the rounds to see that everyone's okay. With that in mind, I'm not sure how meaningful the label of 'humanity' really is to you.” I shrugged. “But then, I don't think any of us can really comprehend your position.”

[That... does help, actually,] Tobias said. [Thanks.]

“No problem.”

[I need to get back to Rachel and let her know you're safe,] he said. [Later, Cassie.]

“Later.”

I watched him take off and fly through the open door and up into the sky. The fight had taken its toll on all of us, but Tobias had paid the highest price. He was right about one thing, though. We all were still alive.

And while we were alive, there was hope.


End file.
